2025 and Christian Family Values
After the May elections and after the House of Representatives and the Senate are re-organized, we will know what laws we will have in 2025. I hope the focus will be on economics. My fear, however, is that Congress might pivot and revive the Reproductive Health (RH) Bills.
The RH bills deal mainly with birth control and secular approaches to family planning. The Church is doing its best to strengthen the family because the twenty-first century’s materialistic and electronically driven values are overwhelming, and certain interpretations of liberation theology from within the Church add further challenges. While the Church is going out of its way to warn the faithful about the negative effects of the RH bill on the family, some professional scholars from Catholic institutions are either endorsing the bill or claiming that there is nothing wrong with it. This is alarming.
The Catholic academe should inspire the faithful, not confuse them. A minority within the Catholic academe sends the troubling message that opposing the Church’s position is justifiable because “we must follow our conscience.” Following one’s conscience is valid only if it is well-formed and grounded in truth. It is one thing if your facts are accurate and your decision based on conscience is correct; it is another if your information consists of twisted facts, half-truths, or misinformation. In that case, your decision will inevitably be flawed.
The assault on Christian family values through the RH bill is just the beginning. There are other proposed congressional bills that threaten to erode Christian family beliefs:
- The divorce bill
- The same-sex or gay marriage bill
- A proposed mercy-killing bill, which would allow doctors to remove life-support machines from terminally ill patients without liability if the family requests it.
In these matters, we must carefully listen to the teachings of the Vatican.
No Comments